And you thought Dan Humphrey was creepy.
Penn Badgley is back on TV in Lifetime’s “You” (Sunday, 10 EDT/PDT, ★★★ out of four), based on the book by Caroline Kepnes. And although he might have been trying to shake off his “Gossip Girl” baggage with the new series, his character, Joe, is disturbingly like an older, more intense and pathological version of the New York prep-school student that made Badgley famous. But hey, if this is typecasting, it’s really excellent typecasting.
Joe is, by all accounts, a nice, sweet guy. He works in a bookstore, reveres rare first editions, befriends his kid neighbor (whose mother has an abusive boyfriend) and is nearly always charming and smiling.
The only thing is, under that charming smile Joe is a violent sociopath and stalker. One day he meets Beck (Elizabeth Lail) at his job and instantly becomes obsessed with her. He methodically stalks her and starts manipulating her life, little by little, until he worms his way into her heart – and bed.
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Joe’s love for Beck is matched only by his hatred for her female friends – his rivals for Beck’s attention – including Peach (Shay Mitchell, “Pretty Little Liars”), a wealthy party girl who is instantly suspicious of Joe. But Beck thinks she has finally met the one guy who understands her. And he does, just a little too well.
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It’s a skin-crawling setup, and “You” works because it leans into its campy thriller bones, not unlike the cheesy movies that populate Lifetime’s Saturday night lineup. But the series, created by Sera Gamble (“The Magicians”) and Greg Berlanti (“Riverdale”), offers a slightly more nuanced take on the genre. There are plenty of twists, exposed secrets and shocking moments of violence, but “You” stays grounded by supplying a measured amount of dry humor, often at the expense of its sociopathic lead. Joe is scary, for sure, but he’s also absurd, and the writers never forget that.
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